Electronic commerce between businesses has gained substantial momentum. Electronic marketplaces and XML or similar documents have begun to replace traditional EDI formats for commerce-related documents. Still, many businesses, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, have not adopted automated EDI or XML document processing. Whatever their size, many businesses face the prospect of an expedited implementation of EDI or XML document processing. It remains easier for large trading partners to generate XML or similar documents than it is for small to medium-sized businesses to adopt the technology needed to process them. In addition, a full scale conversion to EDI or XML transaction processing may involve far more documents than a business can practically convert in a workable time frame or on a reasonable budget.
One problem with the implementation of EDI or XML transaction processing is the complexity and cost of procedural programming to process business documents. Procedural programming, otherwise known as hard coding, requires much effort to describe document transformations and manipulations in procedural terms, using programming languages such as Java and C++. This effort translates into time for implementation and cost of implementation.
In some domains or problem spaces, declarative programming has been introduced. It is generally hoped that so-called declarative programming can make program customization accessible even to non-programmers. At the same time, it has been recognized that declarative programming is best when applied to a limited domain. Accordingly, declarative approaches are narrow and tailored, not generally applied.
Therefore, in the domain of exchanging self-defining, structured documents, it is desirable to develop declarative methods and components for simplifying the handling of documents. Declarative methods and components can improve interactions with users, particularly in the areas of producing documents, presenting error messages and searching for documents.